GAS STATIONS IN LOS ANGELES’ URBAN FABRIC: TRANSLATIONS OF REPRESENTATION

In today’s digitally-driven, media-obsessed world, photography pervades the everyday. Though purportedly portraying reality, even in the most commonplace photographs, perspectival distortion subverts imagery, making subjectivity inextricable from the medium. This thesis explores the power of photography as a design tool in architecture. The project looks to gas stations as a case study for liminal spaces within the urban fabric of Los Angeles, investigating information synthesis through a translation across mediums of representation. Manipulation techniques of hyperrealism and information reduction generate highly curated composites that are translated into physical models for radical design interventions, aiming to reimagine the future of gas stations in Los Angeles through world-making.